Annals of Government Medicine

One of the problems with socialized medicine is that it pretty much destroys–or entirely destroys, depending on a given country’s laws–the private provision of medical services. Thus, when the socialized system begins to crash and burn, as it inevitably will, citizens have nowhere else to turn. That is what is happening in Great Britain: the government has begun a more severe regimen of rationing of surgeries:

Hip replacements, cataract surgery and tonsil removal are among operations now being rationed in a bid to save the NHS money….

Examples of the rationing now being used include:

* Hip and knee replacements only being allowed where patients are in severe pain. Overweight patients will be made to lose weight before being considered for an operation.

* Cataract operations being withheld from patients until their sight problems “substantially” affect their ability to work.

* Patients with varicose veins only being operated on if they are suffering “chronic continuous pain”, ulceration or bleeding.

* Tonsillectomy (removing tonsils) only to be carried out in children if they have had seven bouts of tonsillitis in the previous year.

* Grommets to improve hearing in children only being inserted in “exceptional circumstances” and after monitoring for six months.

* Funding has also been cut in some areas for IVF treatment on the NHS.

I will hazard this guess, though: inasmuch as socialism is always a corrupt system as well as an inefficient one, you can probably still find a way to be operated on if you have political pull. This is the future that awaits us under Obamacare.